Town hall (Bad Honnef)

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Town hall of Bad Honnef (2011)
Aerial view of the city center, top right the town hall (2012)

The town hall of Bad Honnef , a town in the Rhein-Sieg district in North Rhine-Westphalia , was built from 1979 to 1983. It was created according to a design by the architect Joachim Schürmann .

location

The town hall is located in the city center at almost 80  m above sea level. NHN southeast of the parish church of St. Johann Baptist and forms the eastern end of the Rathausplatz, which serves as a car park, between Lohmarstrasse (car access) in the south, Kreuzweidenstrasse in the east and Hauptstrasse and Kirchstrasse in the west.

history

After an expansion due to population growth and the incorporation of Aegidienberg (1969) in the mid-1970s, the city ​​administration of Bad Honnef was spread over five service buildings, including today's “old” town hall as the seat of the mayor and city ​​council . In February 1975, the city council therefore commissioned the administration to examine the location for a new town hall to be built. In July 1975 he decided to carry out an urban planning competition for the city center of Bad Honnef, in which six architecture firms were involved. As a result, the main and finance committee recommended in January 1976, with the consent of the city council, the construction of the town hall in the city center on a previously undeveloped site that previously belonged mainly to the property of the Hotel Rüdesheim (Hauptstrasse 67-69). In December 1976 the city administration was commissioned to conclude an architectural contract with Joachim Schürmann for the construction of the town hall and the associated underground car park . On December 15, 1977, the city council finally decided to give up the old town hall building and to build a new one according to plans by Joachim Schürmann, who had already submitted a draft. The construction costs were initially set at 12.5 million D-Marks .

Construction work began in July 1979. The underground car park created at the beginning of the construction phase already saw a cost increase of around 100%. In February 1981, the expected additional costs had added up to 5.8 million D-Marks, which were accounted for by shell and facade work and technology. Since the urban financial situation had also deteriorated noticeably due to the general economic framework , the entire construction project was again up for political debate. Parts of the city council were in favor of abandoning or selling the shell, and a reduction in equipment standards should help cut costs. In April 1981, however, the city council decided to continue construction. The move of the city administration took place after the completion of the new building in March 1983, the official opening on May 6, 1983. At the end of 1983 the city ​​library also moved into the newly constructed building. In 1984 the town hall received an award for its architecture as an "exemplary building in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia". In 1992 the development of the Rathausplatz was completed by a new residential and commercial building.

In 2003 a so-called “art room” was created under the council chamber, the establishment of which was donated by a local association. On June 18, 2011, a fountain system ( stream of times ) by the sculptor Reinhard Puch , which the architect Schürmann had planned when building the town hall, was inaugurated on the town hall square , reminding of personalities with a special relationship to the town of Bad Honnef. The town hall takes on around 120 city administration employees.

In 2011, extensive renovation work began on the town hall for the first time, the continuation of which is currently being contrasted with a possible new building at another location due to foreseeable further costs in the low double-digit million range in local politics (as of September 2017).

  • Well system timestream

architecture

The town hall is a three-storey concrete building that surrounds the town hall square on a polygonal floor plan . The top of the building is formed by a steep slate roof , which is structured by dormer bands. The ground floor is largely glazed and is accompanied by an archway towards the square, divided by pairs of piers by yoke . The most important interior space is the large conference room as a meeting place for the city council, which is determined by a spacious room composition and a wall sculpture by the local sculptor Ernst Günter Hansing .

“[N] ot just the hall, but the town hall as a whole represents (...) almost an optimum of what is attainable. Without adorning yourself with foreign (historicizing) feathers, rationalism and regionalism are such an uncompromising and original symbiosis of urban design and administrative image and identifiability that one can actually only repeat: a stroke of luck. "

- Frank R. Werner (1983)

literature

References and comments

  1. ↑ Der Baumeister : Journal for Architecture, Planning, Environment , Volume 74, 1976, p. 219.
  2. ^ Karl Günter Werber : Alt Honnefer picture book . Third, greatly expanded edition. Verlag der Buchhandlung Karl Werber, Bad Honnef 1983, p. 131 .
  3. ^ Karl Günter Werber : Time leaps: Bad Honnef . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-86680-560-6 , p. 22 .
  4. ↑ a b “The largest building project in the city” ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.diebadhonnefer.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 6.9 MB) , Die Bad Honnefer Wochenzeitung, April 5, 2013, p. 1/2
  5. ↑ Dating at Rathausplatz 8 , Wikimedia Commons
  6. ↑ Finally the water is flowing , General-Anzeiger , June 10, 2011
  7. ^ Fountain "Zeitstrom" , Kunstraum Bad Honnef
  8. ↑ Main Committee for External Reviewers , Kölnische Rundschau / Bonner Rundschau, September 22, 2017
  9. ^ The city of Bad Honnef mourns: Professor Ernst Günter Hansing has died
  10. ^ Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection (ed.); Heinz Firmenich: City of Bad Honnef. Rhenish art sites
  11. ^ Frank R. Werner: The town hall in Bad Honnef .

Coordinates: 50 ° 38 ′ 41.5 ″  N , 7 ° 13 ′ 46.3 ″  E